Camera Settings For Boudoir

Let’s talk about camera settings for boudoir.

While I do love having a soft look to my images by shooting with a pretty wide open aperture, I make sure to do it in the right situations. Sometimes a shallow depth of field can help the image, while other times I feel it can take away from it.

Typically when shooting in my studio, I am working with an aperture between f/2.8-f/4. Although my lens does make it possible to go down to f/1.4, I do not often use it. My studio is not very bright, and I am also located in Boston where there is a lot of overcast and just general unpredictable weather. I find that a lot of images using f/1.4 end up being too soft for my taste.

I actually rarely change my shutter speed, and typically shoot around 1/200 - 1/250 while in my studio. It can, of course, be higher than this, but I suggest not going any lower than 1/200 as you will start to see some motion blur in your shots. But let’s get back to the aperture as I feel this plays a huge role in the story boudoir images end up telling!

For the sample below, having too shallow of a depth of field would not look right. Her whole body should be in focus, otherwise, there would be too much blur around her legs. Too much blur would take away from this image, and make her less of the subject of the photo.

50MM | f/4 | 1/250 | ISO320

The three samples below all highlight different aspects of my clients’ bodies. In the first sample of the woman in the red lace robe, I only wanted her face in focus. I was fine with the rest of her body being soft since it worked for the photo. I didn’t want this shot to be about her body, I wanted it to be about her face, her smile, and how she felt. An aperture of 2.8 let me keep her face in focus and soften her body without it becoming too blurry.

In the B&W sample, I again wanted to separate the client from the background. I was working with very little light on an overcast day here. I shot at a very wide aperture for me but pushed my ISO pretty far to get my desired result and not sacrifice the sharpness on her body. Opening the aperture wide and not increasing the ISO in this instance would have made a large portion of my clients body blend into the background, which would not have been ideal (especially given how little light I had to work with!).

In the last sample, I photographed with a wider aperture again to make sure only the veil would be in focus. I blurred her body intentionally here to make a rather provocative pose appear much softer.

I personally am a firm believer that there isn’t one setting that works the majority of the time, but that you rather need to understand what story you and your client want for a particular image in the end. It makes it far easier thinking about each shot like this for me, versus what settings I should or shouldn’t be shooting at. How do you all think about it? I’m curious, as every photographer is so different with their process!

50MM | f/2.8 | 1/250 | ISO 800

50MM | f/1.8 | 1/200 | ISO 2500

50MM | f/2.5 | 1/250 | ISO 1250